Monday, February 27, 2012

Jeff Wilpon buys shirts to motivate Mets Players

The Mets players found another shirt in their lockers after the workout was over.

To motivate the team, Jeff Wilpon ordered orange T-shirts for the entire roster that featured the U-shaped logo from the cartoon series “Underdog,” which aired in the 1960s.

Wright seemed lukewarm on the concept of the shirt. He said: “I don’t really like using the whole Underdog thing. I don’t like playing that card.”

But he said he understood the intent behind them.

“Obviously, the expectations from the outside are low, and understandably so, but we in here kind of have to rally around that and get it going, and I guess at the end of the day that is kind of an underdog theme,” he said. “But we shouldn’t view ourselves as that. We’ll let everyone else view us as that, because we kind of know what we’re capable of doing.”

Manager Terry Collins, who said he liked the shirts, said that if players were uncomfortable with them, then they were fulfilling their purpose.

“If it ticks you off, then we’re doing our job,” Collins said of the shirts. “You’ve got to know how you’re being felt out there.”